More Efficient Home Canning

We love to hear about your food preservation projects! Freezing, drying, canning - it is all important and we enjoy listening to your stories of triumph in the kitchen and home. Preserving food for later use has major personal, financial and environmental benefits.

Soon we will be upgrading to a double burner canner and wanted to share the following tip before we make that change. Taking small steps to increase efficiency while preserving really adds up and has those same personal, financial and environmental benefits. Whether you are a beginner canner or have been doing projects for years, this trick increases efficiency tremendously:

Use a shorter jar so you can double stack the canner, allowing sixteen 8 oz jars or eighteen 4 oz jars to fit at a time. We are pretty particular about which canning jars we use (we stick with Anchor Hocking and Ball), and these short Anchor Hocking 8 oz jars double stack beautifully in a standard-sized canner and the finished product has a tight seal. Important note: depending on which sized jar you are using, you will need to adjust your water line so the water bath canner does not overflow upon lowering the jars!

Photos: filled Anchor Hocking 8 oz jar next to Ball 8 oz (bottom, simple rack that is placed between jars in canner (middle), Anchor Hocking jars tend to be a lower price compared to Ball jars (top)